Transferring money

i also contemplated using paypal, but remembered hearing something bad about paypal in the past couple years.  i did a bit of research and came across this website:  http://www.paypalwarning.com/ .  after reading a few things on there, i decided against paypal for a number of reasons (not just because of all the horror stories on the website). 

i found a link on a website (tho i can't find the address for that website) for transferring 1-999GBP that was recommended by the UK Inland Revenue.  I registered with the recommended website at http://www.moneybookers.com/app/ but have yet to transfer any money using their service.  their website says that their fees are relatively low, but i don't know if they use the best conversion rate. 

my UK bank also said that they would do a wire transfer for about 20 quid, but didn't know what the fee would be on the receiving end in the US for converting from GBP to USD.  but since i am only going to be transferring 100-200 quid at a time, $40 in fees is quite a big chunk. 

I use paypal.  I have a US and a UK paypal account, each linked to a bank account in that country.  No fees other than the exchange rate addons and it usually takes about a week to clear.

my wife still get paid via direct debit into our US bank one(chase) account so we had to leave that account open.  She gets paid by the US version of the company so once a month we have to write a large check to HSBC and they convert it so we can have pounds here, usually about a 10 pound charge.  It really shows us how much more costly it is being over here when we get out statements and realize we pay 50 dollars for lunch at pizza express.  We are at the 9 month stage of being over here and are ready to go home.